Field Work - Emily Carr Grad Project

Field Work is a collaborative project I created with Soledad Munoz as our graduation project in our final semester at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. It was a joy to work with Soledad, who contributed a striking large scale sculpture and procedural sound elements to the installation, which interacted with many of the elements I had designed. We were fortunate enough to be awarded the President`s Award for Media Arts, in the category of installations, for our efforts.

My part of the project involved creating an experimental green screen room, deployed various made and found objects painted with chroma key green screen paint. Using 3D software as more of a conceptual tool than a technical one, I generated terrains out of famous canadian landscape paintings of the Group of Seven, to serve as a virtual backdrop for viewers to consider as the navigated the installation.

Many of the reproductions of the famous paintings were also used to create procedural image based animations. The animations were projected into recorded footage of chroma-keyed objects that were scattered around the Emily Carr Grad show gallery space. The objects were mundane detritus and scrap material that I reclaimed and painted with green screen paint to reference the contemporary urban landscape, but also constructed and stage ready objects that would be useful to a studio set.

Big thanks to Alex Quicho for conducting an interview with Soledad and myself. You can read it here.

Field Work - Emily Carr Graduation Project

Distorting spacetime! Artist at work.

Field Work Installation Shot 1

Installation Shot 2

Field Work Installation Shot 3

Field Work Install Clip

Installation Clip of Field Work

Field Work Installation Shot 4

Northern Destiny

A famous speech by group of seven champion and former prime minister of Canada John Diefenbaker, speaking about Canadian identity and unity. The clip was deployed as a displacement modifier to generate an unnerving and undulating terrain. The speech was amplified and distorted by a large scale sculptural microphone created by Soledad Munoz, which augmented the speech with procedural generated bird sounds.

Field Work - Northern Destiny, Gust of Wind

Northern Destiny, Gust of Wind is a piece that was meant to illustrate a relationship between a contemporary notion of nature in the age of post production, with romantic ideas about nature that many still adhere to. A simulation of a gust of wind was deployed to have what appears to be real consequences on a framed image of John Diefenbaker, one who supported the romantic affinities with nature that the Group of Seven bolstered and are admired for in terms of defining Canadian identity in fine arts. On display in this work are also many elements of interface and tools used in various software packages. These were defined in reference to the way the group of seven might have deployed paint in some situations, to express the materiality and iconography of paint itself.

Field Work - Northern Destiny, Gust of Wind

Northern Destiny, Gust of Wind Clip

Gust of Wind is a piece that was meant to illustrate a relationship between a contemporary notion of nature in the age of post production, with romantic ideas about nature that many still adhere to. A simulation of a gust of wind was deployed to have what appears to be real consequences on a framed image of John Diefenbaker, one who supported the romantic affinities with nature that the Group of Seven bolstered and are admired for in terms of defining Canadian identity in fine arts. On display in this work are also many elements of interface and tools used in various software packages. These were defined in reference to the way the group of seven might have deployed paint in some situations, to express the materiality and iconography of paint itself.

High resolution reproduction of a A.Y. Jackson Painting of a radium mine deployed as a displacement and albedo map of a 3D particle. Paired with another reproduction of the same painting as a topological map.

Franklin Carmichael Door Stop 1 (Detail)

Detail shot of the post-production effects done to the Franklin Carmichael Door Stops.

Franklin Carmichael Door Stop 2 (Detail)

Detail shot of the post-production effects done to the Franklin Carmichael Door Stops.

Field Work - Lawren Harris Iceberg

Reproduction of a Lawren Harris painting of an iceberg overlayed with green screen paint in the shape of a distorted primitive 3D Object. Part of a larger series of paintings. The painting was documented and a the green screen paint edited out using post-production tools. Inserted into this new empty space is a found video clip of people cheering during a calving event in the arctic.

Field Work - Lawren Harris Iceberg

Side by side comparison of the painting and the post production effects.

A.Y. Jackson Radium Mine (Still)

Tom Thomson - Jack Pine (Still)

A.J. Casson - Little Island (Still)

Emily Carr - Totem (Still)

Standard Primitives

A series of paintings that were the precursor to my grad project Field Work. Exploring a relationship between the history of painting in Canada and new technologies used to create digital environments, I meticulously reproduced famous Group of Seven paintings and then painted over them with rudimentary colors, often used in software, leaving traces of the underlying paintings in the shape of standard primitive shapes native to 3D tools.

Standard Primitives - Edwin Holgate Teapot

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Franklin Carmichael Cube

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Arthur Lismer Sphere

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Lawren Harris Pyramid

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Tom Thomson Torus Knot

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Emily Carr Cylinder

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Lemoine Fitzgerald Cone

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - A.Y. Jackson Torus

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Arthur Lismer Plane

Acrylic on Canvas.

Standard Primitives - Frederick Varley Geosphere

Acrylic on Canvas.

Fugitives

Fugitive to our senses,these things are left to decay in the light.A flâneur produces multiple exposures in an ontology for all things to uproot and explore.A wasted opportunity,betrayed to the elements,finds an unlikely assortment of companions to turn with;a revolution around a radiant spheresheds indirect translations of colours and forms.7 billion photons in a search radiusfind global illumination.

The rate at which we produce and consume new technologies today is alarming, wasteful, and subscribes to the economic injustice in technological design philosophy. We are in need of repositioning ourselves in an ecologically conscientious playing field, in defiance of the fallibility of technological progression, where for instance, collecting garbage and out-dated technologies, can be a point of departure for plethora of different projects. I would like to explore the cohesive network of all objects, and how considering each one can be a partial departure for those succeeding. In this way I believe in the continuity of the chase, as every fugitive is in part passed on to the next.